Installation of Linux on PRIMERGY RX2530 M2


Contents

Linux drivers for PRIMERGY servers

An overview of all avaliable Linux documentation you can find here:
http://partners.ts.fujitsu.com/com/products/servers/primergy/opsys/linux
and here:
http://ts.fujitsu.com/products/standard_servers/os

An overview of all avaliable Linux readmes you can find here: http://www.fujitsu.com/fts/primergy-linux-docs.
For a more detailed description on the specifics of Linux drivers, the tool primesetup and errata kernels please have a look at the elaborate "PRIMERGY Linux Drivers Readme" document. You can find this information offline in the /Unix/Linux/Doc folder on the FUJITSU ServerView SuiteTM DVD-ROM. Here you can find the newest published version of this document: http://www.fujitsu.com/fts/primergy-linux-docs.
For a more detailed description on the specifics PRIMERGY server you find an overview here:
http://manuals.ts.fujitsu.com
and here:
http://support.ts.fujitsu.com/manuals

General hints

The ACPI state S1 is currently not supported under every Linux OS.

BIOS Configuration/Setup Utility

General BIOS setup [F2]


Released Distributions


SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 x86_64 (Service Pack 4 and newer)

Please read first the "Release Notes for SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11": https://www.suse.com/releasenotes/x86_64/SUSE-SLES/11-SP4/.

NOTE
i586 and i686 Machine with more than 16 GB of Memory
Depending on the workload, i586 and i686 machines with 16GB-48GB of memory can run into instabilities. Machines with more than 48GB of memory are not supported at all. To run on such a machine, lower the memory with the mem= kernel boot option.
In such memory scenarious we strongly recommend to use a x86_64 system with 64-bit SLES 11 and run the x86 (32bit) applications on it.
Please see the "Release Notes for SUSE LINUX Enterprise Server 11".

Installation with FUJITSU drivers

Install update kernel

SUSE Patch Support Database (PSDB)

A way to update your SLES installation is to download the necessary patches and errata kernels from the SUSE Patch Support Database located at
http://support.novell.com/linux/psdb
For a first access you have to register your business product by using the 14 digits code printed on the product CD box. After registering you can select the necessary RPMs as follows: ( example for kernel patch Release:20100722)

Install these RPMs as described in the "Installation notes" on this page.
Download the kernel version you need from this page.

Install the update kernel following your Linux distributor's instructions. Use primesetup to install the required FUJITSU drivers for the update kernel before rebooting your system. If you use the Novell Partner Linux Driver Process (PLDP) it is not necessary to install the required FUJITSU drivers again after a kernel update.
You find a detailed description of the tool primesetup in the document "PRIMERGY Linux Drivers Readme" and a description of the PLDP in the document "PRIMERGY Novell PLDP README" (http://www.fujitsu.com/fts/primergy-linux-docs ).

Remote Deploy
Deployment of SUSE SLES 11 is only possible if the Mountby-Option "Device Name" is used instead of "Device ID".
During native installation the customer must set these option for every partition by hand.

Enabling the power capping functionality
To make the power meter device fully functional on PRIMERGY under SLES 11, use the kernel parameter "acpi_power_meter.force_cap_on=1".
If the sysfs files power_cap, power_cap_min, etc. are visible in sysfs, power capping is available.

Hints and restrictions

Installation using Persistent Device names
The installer uses persistent device names by default. If you plan to add additional storage devices to your system after the OS installation, we strongly recommend you use persistent device names for all storage devices.

To switch to persistent device names on a system that has already been installed, use the YaST2 partitioner. For each partition, select "Edit" and go to the "FStab Options" dialog. Any mount option except "Device name" provides you persistent device names. In addition, rerun the boot loader module in YaST to switch the bootloader to using the persistent device name. Just start the module and select "Finish" to write the new proposed configuration to disk. This needs to be done before adding new storage devices.

For further information please visit:
http://en.opensuse.org/SDB:Persistent_storage_device_names.

NOTE
Systems using storage attached to Fibre Channel host bus adapters (FC HBAs) may encounter issues during installation due to PCI device load ordering.
If you install on a system with FC HBAs with attached storage devices please double-check the disk you have selected as your boot disk.
If you install on a system with FC HBAs without attached storage devices please check the driver order in the file /etc/sysconfig/kernel after installation. The driver for your boot controller has to be the first one. Afterwards rerun /sbin/mkinitrd and do a reboot. Otherwise your system will not boot after attaching storage devices to your FC HBAs.

SNMP NOTE
The default setting for the logging of the SNMP daemon is "debug". This configuration is done via the parameter "SNMPD_LOGLEVEL" in the file /etc/sysconfig/net-snmp.
This configuration will increase the log file /var/log/net-snmpd.log.
To avoid the increasing of the log file edit the file /etc/sysconfig/net-snmp and change the logging from "d" (debug) to "n" (notice) or to "w" (warning).

Very sporadically the system can hang during boot with a CPU IERR.
Workaround:
Disable USB 3.0 in BIOS (XHCI = Disabled)

Released host bus adapters

The following host bus adapters are released:

Please use the latest driver offered by FUJITSU, which you can find on the Support web page under http://support.ts.fujitsu.com/download or on the FUJITSU ServerView Suite DVD. If there is no driver offered on the Support web page please use the native driver.

For configuration and administration of the Emulex FC HBA's please use the tool OneCommandManager (OCM), which you can find on the Support web page under http://support.ts.fujitsu.com/download or on the FUJITSU ServerView Suite DVD.


Onboard LSI SATA SW RAID (driver megasr)

For the installation of the onboard LSI SATA SW RAID (MegaSR) controller the driver megasr is needed.

NOTE
RAID OPROM has to be enabled in BIOS Setup to use the onboard LSI SATA SW Raid!
Please use the latest driver offered by FUJITSU, which you can find on the Support web page under http://support.ts.fujitsu.com/download or on the FUJITSU ServerstartCD.

NOTE Virtualization
Running virtual machines under the KVM and XEN hypervisors is unsupported with the megasr driver 16.x and later.


SanDisk PCIe-SSD PX600 (driver iomemory-vsl4)

PCIe-SSD PX600 is released for 64bit operating systems only.
Boot from PCIe-SSD PX600 is not supported.
PCIe hot-add/hot-replace is not supported.
Supported sector sizes: 512 bytes, 4096 bytes.
ServerView RAID Version 6.2.7 or later is required.
For the installation of the SanDisk PCIe-SSD Adapters, the driver iomemory-vsl4 is needed. Please use the latest driver offered by FUJITSU, which you can find on the Support web page under http://ts.fujitsu.com/support/downloads.html or on the FUJITSU ServerView Suite DVD. Additionally Utilites are available for download from the FUJITSU Support web page.
After loading the iomemory-vsl4 driver, the devices are mapped to /dev/fioa, /dev/fiob ... etc.


Mellanox IB HCA 40Gb and IB HCA 56Gb FDR single/dual port Adapter (driver OFED)

Please read first the Mellanox_OFED_Linux_Release_Notes.


Mellanox IB CX4 HCA Card 100Gb EDR 1Port / 2Port (driver OFED)

Please read first the Mellanox_OFED_Linux_Release_Notes.


Intel IB HCA 40 Gb 1-port QLE7340 CK and Intel IB HCA 40 Gb 2-port QLE7342 CK (driver Intel OFED kit for IB devices (IFS))

During the installation of IFS with a two port HCA please select 'n' to the following question:
Single Port Mode reallocates all QLogic HCA resources to HCA Port 1. EnableQLogic HCA Single Port Mode? [y]:


iSCSI-Boot

iSCSI-Boot is released for SLES 11 SP1 and newer.
iSCSI-Boot is not released for for the XEN kernel.
iSCSI-Boot does not support channel bonding and/or MultiPath SW.
Kdump is not possible with iSCSI-Boot.
iSCSI-Boot is released for the Onboard-LAN controller (LOM).
uEFI iSCSI boot for SLES11 SP3 is not possible


SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12 x86_64

Please read first the "Release Notes for SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12": https://www.suse.com/releasenotes/x86_64/SUSE-SLES/12/.

Installation with FUJITSU drivers

Install update kernel

SUSE Patch Support Database (PSDB)

A way to update your SLES installation is to download the necessary patches and errata kernels from the SUSE Patch Support Database located at
http://download.novell.com/patch/psdb/
For a first access you have to register your business product by using the 14 digits code printed on the product CD box. After registering you can select the necessary RPMs as follows:

Install these RPMs as described in the "Installation notes" on this page.
Download the kernel version you need from this page.

Install the update kernel following your Linux distributor's instructions. Use primesetup to install the required FUJITSU drivers for the update kernel before rebooting your system. If you use the Novell Partner Linux Driver Process (PLDP) it is not necessary to install the required FUJITSU drivers again after a kernel update.
You find a detailed description of the tool primesetup in the document "PRIMERGY Linux Drivers Readme" and a description of the PLDP in the document "PRIMERGY Novell PLDP README" (http://www.fujitsu.com/fts/primergy-linux-docs ).

Hints and restrictions

NOTE Problem with SNMP and 10 Gb LAN adapter D2755
If more than one port of the 10Gb LAN controller card D2755 is in use without an Ethernet SFP+ module or without a "direct attach" cable, the snmpd hangs in a loop and doesn't answer any more questions.
That means the system can no longer be managed with ServerView.

The root couse is in a ixgbe driver problem which certain ioctl() calls delayed by more than 1s.

A useful workaround is to ensure that at most one port without SFP+ module or "direct attach" cable is running.
Optionally, one must summarize the connections to as few cards and do not install the cards that are not required.

NOTE Video configuration
The SLES 12 video driver for iRMC S3/iRMC S4 (Kronos3/4 Matrox/MGA-G200e) works in 24bpp mode.
Therefore the highest resolutions (>1440x900) aren't available under SLES 12 with the Video Redirection via the iRMC.

Workaround:
Use the kernel parameter "mgag200.preferreddepth=16"

NOTE ServerView
Please update the openssl packages to be able to connect to SVOM / Remote Connector Service with updates provided by SUSE, e.g.:

libopenssl1_0_0-1.0.1i-2.12.7637.0.PTF.902714.x86_64.rpm
openssl-1.0.1i-2.12.7637.0.PTF.902714.x86_64.rpm.

Very sporadically the system can hang during boot with a CPU IERR.            !!! ATTENTION !!!
Workaround:
Disable USB 3.0 in BIOS (XHCI = Disabled)

Installation on SATA SSD or SATADOM in AHCI-Mode
It is not possible to install SLES 12 SP1 with the default filesystem btrfs on SATADOM or SSD in AHCI-Mode.
Please use for the root directoy "/" the filesystem XFS and for "/boot" the filesystem ext3.

Released host bus adapters

The following host bus adapters are released:

Please use the latest driver offered by FUJITSU, which you can find on the Support web page under http://support.ts.fujitsu.com/download or on the FUJITSU ServerView Suite DVD. If there is no driver offered on the Support web page please use the native driver.

For configuration and administration of the Emulex FC HBA's please use the tool OneCommandManager (OCM), which you can find on the Support web page under http://support.ts.fujitsu.com/download or on the FUJITSU ServerView Suite DVD.


Onboard LSI SATA SW RAID (driver megasr)

For the installation of the onboard LSI SATA SW RAID (MegaSR) controller the driver megasr is needed.

NOTE driver update not possible
SLES 12 does not boot anymore after updating the MegaSR driver.

There are two workarounds for this problem available:
Workaround 1:
After the update, run "mkinitrd" manually.

Workaround 2:
Before the update, change /etc/zypp/zypp.conf as follows:
Replace the line
multiversion = provides:multiversion(kernel)
by
multiversion = kernel

NOTE Virtualization
Running virtual machines under the KVM and XEN hypervisors is unsupported with the megasr driver 16.x and later.

NOTE
Please use the latest driver offered by FUJITSU, which you can find on the Support web page under http://support.ts.fujitsu.com/download or on the FUJITSU ServerstartCD.


SanDisk PCIe-SSD PX600 (driver iomemory-vsl4)

PCIe-SSD PX600 is released for 64bit operating systems only.
Boot from PCIe-SSD PX600 is not supported.
PCIe hot-add/hot-replace is not supported.
Supported sector sizes: 512 bytes, 4096 bytes.
ServerView RAID Version 6.2.7 or later is required.
For the installation of the SanDisk PCIe-SSD Adapters, the driver iomemory-vsl4 is needed. Please use the latest driver offered by FUJITSU, which you can find on the Support web page under http://ts.fujitsu.com/support/downloads.html or on the FUJITSU ServerView Suite DVD. Additionally Utilites are available for download from the FUJITSU Support web page.
After loading the iomemory-vsl4 driver, the devices are mapped to /dev/fioa, /dev/fiob ... etc.


Mellanox IB HCA 40Gb and IB HCA 56Gb FDR single/dual port Adapter (driver OFED)

Please read first the Mellanox_OFED_Linux_Release_Notes.


Mellanox IB CX4 HCA Card 100Gb EDR 1Port / 2Port (driver OFED)

Please read first the Mellanox_OFED_Linux_Release_Notes.


Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 x86 & x86_64 (Update 7 and newer)

Please read first the "Release Notes for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6": https://access.redhat.com/documentation/en-US/Red_Hat_Enterprise_Linux/.

Installation with FUJITSU drivers

Install update kernel

NOTE
Red Hat and FUJITSU recommend updating the installed kernel with the latest errata kernel (patch kernel). Newer errata kernels will be released on a regular basis and should be applied.

Errata kernels for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 are available for registered users through the Red Hat Network located at https://access.redhat.com/.

Install the update kernel following your Linux distributor's instructions.

Hints and restrictions

NOTE memory poisoning
RHEL6 supports memory poisoning (HWPOISON, aka uncorrectable recoverable memory errors), but only with the kernel parameter "transparent_hugepage=never".

NOTE FUJITSU ServerView software
The tools BIOS ASP's, ServerView Agents and ServerViewRAID have dependencies to the 32bit versions of the packages openssl, compat-libstdc++-33 and pam.
It is not possible to choose any 32bit packages during the system installation of the 64bit version of RHEL 6.
So you have to install the packages openssl.i686, compat-libstdc++-33.i686 and pam.i686 after the system installation.

NOTE Network configuration
With the NetworkManager which is default enabled in RHEL 6 it is not possible to configure a network configuration like channel bonding or bridges. And there is no other tool to do this.
So you have to disable the Networkmanager and to configure by hand-editing the ifcfg* files.
This is a limitation for RHEL 6.
But:
If adding a new LAN Card to an already existing OS installation it's easier to make the detection via NetworkManager because it automatically detects the new HW and script files are made.

NOTE Video configuration
There is only very limited support for switching color depth and resolution under RHEL6.
The following Red Hat knowledge base articles describe the procedure to change color depth if necessary:
How to create xorg.conf:
https://access.redhat.com/knowledge/node/5263
How to change the display depth of desktop:
https://access.redhat.com/kb/docs/DOC-43178
How do I add desired display mode in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6:
https://access.redhat.com/knowledge/solutions/86603

Using this method has disadvantages, because the resulting static Xorg configuration will prevent plug-and-play operation of the X server (e.g. adding monitors on the fly).
Because Kronos 4 offers 1600x1200 pixel only at 16bpp, and X operates at 24/32 bpp by default, 1600x1200 can only be achieved by following the above procedure to change the color depth. Because this is cumbersome for users, so it is recommended to restrict Kronos 4 support to max. 1280x1024 for RHEL6.

NOTE KDUMP configuration
Using the system-config-kdump tool is not recommended for configuring kdump, because the GUI is irritating and sometimes makes wrong settings. Hand-editing /etc/kdump.conf is easier and less error-prone.
This is a limitation for RHEL 6.

When a "raw" partition is entered in /etc/kdump.conf, kdump does write a dump to the partition but the dump is not automatically recovered at the next reboot.
When raw partitions are used for dumping, the dump must be recovered manually after reboot using "makedumpfile -R" (e.g. makedumpfile -R vmcore < /dev/sdb).

Enabling the power capping functionality
To make the power meter device fully functional on PRIMERGY under RHEL 6, use the kernel parameter "acpi_power_meter.force_cap_on=1".
If the sysfs files power_cap, power_cap_min, etc. are visible in sysfs, power capping is available.

When trying to boot from RHEL 6.4 Installation DVD, a dark screen is displayed
The problem only exists if a NVidia NVS300 is installed in PRIMERGY systems and if BIOS setting "Above 4G Decoding=enabled".

The BIOS Post is displayed correctly, but instead of getting the initial graphical Installation Boot Menu of RHEL 6.4, a dark screen is displayed.

Workaround:
1. Presss ESC when dark screen is displayed, the boot prompt is displayed then.
2. Enter "linux", then installation of RHEL6.4 starts and graphic display will be available again!

The BIOS setting "Above 4G Decoding=enabled" currently is only necessary for systems with GPGPU/Intel Xeon Phi Coprocessor cards installed.
NVidia NVS300 together with GPGPU/Intel Xeon Phi Coprocessor cards is not a preferred configuration.

The Power Control Mode can only be used with the default value "O/S controlled".

Very sporadically the system can hang during boot with a CPU IERR.
Workaround:
Disable USB 3.0 in BIOS (XHCI = Disabled)

Released host bus adapters

The following host bus adapters are released:

Please use the latest driver offered by FUJITSU, which you can find on the Support web page under http://support.ts.fujitsu.com/download or on the FUJITSU ServerView Suite DVD. If there is no driver offered on the Support web page please use the native driver.

For configuration and administration of the Emulex FC HBA's please use the tool OneCommandManager (OCM) and for configuration and administration of the QLogic FC HBA's please use the tool SANsurfer, which you can find on the Support web page under http://support.ts.fujitsu.com/download or on the FUJITSU ServerView Suite DVD.


Onboard LSI SATA SW RAID (driver megasr)

For the installation of the onboard LSI SATA SW RAID (MegaSR) controller the driver megasr is needed.

NOTE
Please use the latest driver offered by FUJITSU, which you can find on the Support web page under http://support.ts.fujitsu.com/download or on the FUJITSU ServerstartCD.

NOTE Virtualization
Running virtual machines under the KVM hypervisor is unsupported with the megasr driver 16.x and later.


SanDisk PCIe-SSD PX600 (driver iomemory-vsl4)

PCIe-SSD PX600 is released for 64bit operating systems only.
Boot from PCIe-SSD PX600 is not supported.
PCIe hot-add/hot-replace is not supported.
Supported sector sizes: 512 bytes, 4096 bytes.
ServerView RAID Version 6.2.7 or later is required.
For the installation of the SanDisk PCIe-SSD Adapters, the driver iomemory-vsl4 is needed. Please use the latest driver offered by FUJITSU, which you can find on the Support web page under http://ts.fujitsu.com/support/downloads.html or on the FUJITSU ServerView Suite DVD. Additionally Utilites are available for download from the FUJITSU Support web page.
After loading the iomemory-vsl4 driver, the devices are mapped to /dev/fioa, /dev/fiob ... etc.


Mellanox IB HCA 40Gb and IB HCA 56Gb FDR single/dual port Adapter (driver OFED)

Please read first the Mellanox_OFED_Linux_Release_Notes.

Limitation / Consideration for the CX2 IB-HCA card


Mellanox IB CX4 HCA Card 100Gb EDR 1Port / 2Port (driver OFED)

Please read first the Mellanox_OFED_Linux_Release_Notes.


Intel IB HCA 40 Gb 1-port QLE7340 CK and Intel IB HCA 40 Gb 2-port QLE7342 CK (driver Intel OFED kit for IB devices (IFS))

During the installation of IFS with a two port HCA please select 'n' to the following question:
Single Port Mode reallocates all QLogic HCA resources to HCA Port 1. EnableQLogic HCA Single Port Mode? [y]:


iSCSI-Boot

iSCSI-Boot is released for RHEL 6.1 and newer.
Please set the kernel parameter "ip=ibft netboot=iscsi iscsi_firmware" during the installation.
Disable I/OAT in system BIOS, it has no performance benefit anyway.
The NetworkManager has to be disabled.
iSCSI-Boot does not support channel bonding and/or MultiPath SW.
Kdump is not possible with iSCSI-Boot.
iSCSI-Boot is released for the Onboard-LAN controller (LOM).


Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 x86_64 (Update 2 and newer)

Please read first the "Release Notes for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7": https://access.redhat.com/documentation/en-US/Red_Hat_Enterprise_Linux/.

Installation of RHEL 7.x
On some systems during the installation of RHEL 7.x this System Event Log (SEL) entry is created:
"Generic IPMI event: GenId '00', SensorType 'OS Boot', EventType '6F', SensorName '', EventData: 07 00 00"

This message can be ignored.

Installation with FUJITSU drivers

Install update kernel

NOTE
Red Hat and FUJITSU recommend updating the installed kernel with the latest errata kernel (patch kernel). Newer errata kernels will be released on a regular basis and should be applied.

Errata kernels for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 are available for registered users through the Red Hat Network located at https://access.redhat.com/.

Install the update kernel following your Linux distributor's instructions.

Hints and restrictions

NOTE Video configuration
The RHEL 7 video driver for iRMC S3/iRMC S4 (Kronos3/4 Matrox/MGA-G200e) works in 24bpp mode.
Therefore the highest resolutions (>1440x900) aren't available under RHEL 7 with the Video Redirection via the iRMC.

Workaround:
Use the kernel parameter "mgag200e.preferreddepth=16"

Very sporadically the system can hang during boot with a CPU IERR.
Workaround:
Disable USB 3.0 in BIOS (XHCI = Disabled)

An unexpected system reboot or system freeze can occur or a lot of rcu messages are reported.            !!! ATTENTION !!!
Under heavy system load frequent messages "INFO: rcu_sched detected stalls on CPUs/tasks" can occur.
Also spontaneous resets of a server or system hangs during heavy system load can occur.

Workaround:
Please use the kernel parameter

rcuupdate.rcu_stall_suppress=1

Released host bus adapters

The following host bus adapters are released:

Please use the latest driver offered by FUJITSU, which you can find on the Support web page under http://support.ts.fujitsu.com/download or on the FUJITSU ServerView Suite DVD. If there is no driver offered on the Support web page please use the native driver.

For configuration and administration of the Emulex FC HBA's please use the tool OneCommandManager (OCM) and for configuration and administration of the QLogic FC HBA's please use the tool SANsurfer, which you can find on the Support web page under http://support.ts.fujitsu.com/download or on the FUJITSU ServerView Suite DVD.


Onboard LSI SATA SW RAID (driver megasr)

For the installation of the onboard LSI SATA SW RAID (MegaSR) controller the driver megasr is needed.

For the installation of RHEL 7 with the driver megasr the kernel parameter modprobe.blacklist=ahci is required.

NOTE Virtualization
Running virtual machines under the KVM hypervisor is unsupported with the megasr driver 16.x and later.

NOTE
Please use the latest driver offered by FUJITSU, which you can find on the Support web page under http://support.ts.fujitsu.com/download or on the FUJITSU ServerstartCD.


Mellanox IB HCA 40Gb and IB HCA 56Gb FDR single/dual port Adapter (driver OFED)

Please read first the Mellanox_OFED_Linux_Release_Notes.


Mellanox IB CX4 HCA Card 100Gb EDR 1Port / 2Port (driver OFED)

Please read first the Mellanox_OFED_Linux_Release_Notes.


Oracle Linux 7 (Update 2 and newer) (x86_64)

Please read first the "Oracle Linux 7 Release Notes". You can find them here: http://docs.oracle.com/.

Install update kernel

NOTE
Oracle and FUJITSU recommend updating the installed kernel with the latest errata kernel (patch kernel). Newer errata kernels will be released on a regular basis and should be applied.

Errata kernels for Oracle VM and Oracle Linux are available through the Oracle public yum repository located at http://public-yum.oracle.com/.

Install the update kernel following your Linux distributor's instructions.

Hints and restrictions

NOTE Installation
Please see also the hints and restrictions for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.

NOTE TPM
TPM is not yet released with Oracle Linux 7.x

NOTE SCU
The proprietary LSI MegaSR RAID stack is not supported with Oracle VM and Oracle Linux. Thus, the OPROM of the SCU SAS controller has to be switched to the Intel OPROM in the system BIOS to support the native OS driver (sci). Note that this is a nonRAID driver. RAID functionality has to be added by the Linux md driver if desired. If you have more than 1 disk attached to the SCU and these disks were part of a RAID before, please make sure that the RAID configuration is deleted on all disks.

Released host bus adapters

The following host bus adapters are released:


XEN with SUSE SLES 11

XEN is only released on systems with more than 4 Gigabyte main memory.

SATA SW RAID (driver megasr) is supported with SLES 11 XEN.

If you are planning to install any fully virtualized guest OS, please check, if your system supports this mode. If it is supported you must enable the VT mode in BIOS setup. After this change you also have to power down the system and power it up again. Just rebooting is not sufficient on most systems to be able to install the fully virtualized guest OS.

Hints and restrictions

BIOS UEFI with SLES 11 XEN
The BIOS UEFI mode is not supported with SLES 11 XEN, please use the legacy mode.

Kdump with SLES 11 XEN
The kdump with SLES 11 XEN works only after changing the default value of the parameter "KDUMP_DUMPFORMAT".
Please change the value of the parameter from "compressed" to "ELF".

The parameter can be changed in the config file /etc/sysconfig/kdump or with YAST/kdump/Dump Filtering.

Kdump with SLES 11 SP3 XEN
The kdump with SLES 11 SP3 XEN works only after changing the default value of the parameter "KDUMP_DUMPLEVEL".
Please change the value of the parameter from "31" to "0".

The parameter can be changed in the config file /etc/sysconfig/kdump or with YAST/kdump/Dump Filtering.

In addition, the parameter "KDUMP_DUMPFORMAT" needs to be changed, please see above.

Kdump with SLES 11 XEN: system hangs
Sometimes it happens that a kdump is not written (local or via network).
If this issue occurs the system hangs and a manual reset is necessary.

Workaround:
The problem can be solved by setting the "nox2apic" parameter in /etc/sysconfig/kdump.

/etc/sysconfig/kdump:
KDUMP_COMMAND_LINE_APPEND="nox2apic"

CPU scaling with SLES 11 XEN
Cpufreq under Xen 3.3 isn't done by Dom0 but by the Hypervisor itself, using the xen command line option "cpufreq=xen". This option is appended to the "kernel" line in /boot/grub/menu.lst:

kernel /xen.gz-3.3.0 cpufreq=xen

Up from SLES 11 SP3 with Xen 4.2 the parameter "cpufreq=xen" is no longer required.

Cpufreq Control is done with the "xenpm" tool which is part of the xen-tools package under SLES 11.

Memory support for dom0 with SLES 11 XEN
Under SLES11, there is a general limit for Dom0 memory of 500GB.
Please see:
http://www.novell.com/docrep/2009/09/SUSE_Linux_Enterprise_Server_Virtualization_Technology_Support_en.pdf.

.


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LINUX is a trademark of Linus Torvalds.
All hardware and software names are trademarks of their respective manufactures.
Linux_Readme_RX2530M2_v1_3.html

Last update: June 27, 2016